BEHIND THE RIOTS: A HIDDEN GREEK TRAGEDY 

Special Correspondent 

Copyright: www.landomiracles.com

As demonstrations abate in some parts of Greece, but continue in Athens and Thessaloniki, many

Greeks now ask themselves when will this end. After a week of vicious riots that have wrecked

hundreds of businesses and driven an already tottering economy to desperation, theories about 

the causes of mayhem emerge thick off the keyboards of journalists and experts.

The riots do not constitute a “surprise,” as many reports claim. They did come as a surprise only

to those who have no clue; those who chose to ignore specific aspects of the restoration of 

democracy in Greece and trends that have evolved over more than three decades of convoluted

post-junta Greek history; and those who, out of pure political opportunism, insisted throughout 

that problems, even the most vexing ones, could be solved eventually “because in a democracy

there are no dead ends,” to quote one of the most fatigued cliches of today's wooden political

party idiom.

Great social upheavals and rebellions are never instantaneous events that rise from brief 

moments in history. Like so many similar troubles before them, the Greek riots were slow

pressure-cooker events, with temperatures rosing gradually over time. The inevitable catalyst 

behind blowing the lid took the form of the police shooting a young man in a scruffy Athens

neighborhood on 6 December 2008.

What is then the “longer look” that helps us explain “how we ended up so low, so fast” in the

preceding few days of violence not seen in this country since the end of World War II? Here's a

quick list:

The restoration of democracy also restored an old discredited political lineup:  The junta

demobilized all pre-1967 politicians but avoided scrupulously any radical purge of political

personnel. When the junta collapsed in the fateful summer of 1974, a political class that had been

tried and tested and found severely wanting in the 1950s and 1960s quickly re-established itself 

at the helm. The main “new force” that appeared in the junta's immediate aftermath, Andreas

Papandreou's Panhellenic Socialist Movement (Pasok), arrived at the scene with very old grudges

and demands but with a novel grass roots organizational model that quickly overpowered the old

guard's “new” political parties. Greece, in 1974, did not make a brand new beginning. Rather, the

old clock, stopped by the tanks on 21 April 1967, begun ticking again on 20 July 1974, only the

protagonists had been subjected to a reshuffle.

Post-junta political philosophies: In an ironic way, the dictatorship emboldened the Greek Left 

in ways that would have been unimaginable before the colonels intervened in 1967. Leftwing

forces had not forgotten their defeat during the communist insurgency of 1946-49; their hatred

of the “accursed Right” remained undiminished, especially after seven years of military rule. With

the restoration of parliamentary rule, “reform” concentrated thus on unhinging the “established

order” and replacing it with “progressive” schemes, an undertaking Greek conservatives, now on

1

 

the defensive, would not denounce or oppose for fear of being accused of “junta tendencies.” Such

“reform” accelerated under Pasok rule (1980-88 and again 1993-2004), influencing every level of 

government and unleashing powerful social trends that stressed “anti-authoritarianism,” “anti-

conservatism and democratization in all sectors,” and “socialization and anti-conformism.” All

these “anti”s had a pervasive impact, dismantling authority structures, undermining

“conservative behaviors,” and putting the emphasis on individual “liberty” based on

unaccountability and arbitrary action.

Methodical undermining and discrediting of the state's “apparatus of oppression:”  In the

wake of the junta, both the armed forces and law enforcement became targets for thorough

“democratization.” The exercise was carried out with typical Greek partisan excess. Criteria for

promotion and retention quickly adjusted to the needs of the nouveau regime. In the case of the

police especially, the enforcement of this new “democratic contract” between government and the

“apparatus of oppression” resulted in a steep drop of morale, never to be restored, not to mention

encouraging all “social partners” and the media to bash the police as if it were a body foreign to

the Greek polity. The direct outcomes of this process, in combination with poor training, poor pay,

and poor status, are starkly visible in the streets of Greece today.

Corruption and clientelism: Endemic in Greece since the very inception of the modern Greek 

state in 1830, corruption and political party clientelism assumed all-embracing expressions in

post-junta Greece. Today, Greece is routinely quoted as one of the most corrupt EU member

states. Corruption affects the everyday routines of the majority of the population; weighs down

the economy with disproportionate burdens; is the driving force behind many highest level

political decisions; feeds an unending cycle of scandals that destabilize governments and other

institutions; and sustains a “Wild West” attitude among ordinary citizens, who have come to see

nothing wrong with breaching the law and pursuing a non-ending effort to avoid and evade rules

and regulations (from which successful practitioners of corruption are of course exempted).

Dismantling education: Perhaps the most insidious and corrosive of all post-junta “reforms,”

restoring “freedom” in the public education system resulted in the collapse of whatever standards

and regular teaching could still be sustained, and the thorough radicalization of successive post-

junta generations of youth. The details of this disastrous exercise could occupy tomes.

“Empowering” pupils and students removed all stops, effectively abrogated the core

administrative structures of the school, turned universities into open ground for non-stop

political infighting, subverted disciplinary policies and minimum performance standards for

students and teaching staff alike, and, in the end, brought about the implosion of the entire public

education system. Again, the effects of this democratic transformation are obvious in schools and

universities around the country -- bleak, graffiti-infested, semi-ruined no man's lands supposedly

sustaining “learning.”

 Academic asylum: Closely related to the collapse of schools and universities, but also with

critical political implications overall, the so-called “academic asylum” prohibits security forces

from entering university campuses to clear them of rioters using academic facilities as base

camps for criminal acts against the universities themselves and also outside the fence. A direct 

offshoot of the army invading the Athens Polytechnic campus on 17 November 1973 to quell a

student uprising, the asylum law is a major obstacle in protecting university facilities from

2

 

vandalism and restoring law and order in their wider vicinity. As of this writing, rioters are still

holding university buildings in Athens and Thessaloníki, using them to attack police, invade

neighboring areas to burn and destroy, and prolong the complete breakdown that has befallen

Greece since 6 December 2008.

One can go on with this list forever. The riots, however, finally forced upon everyone in Greek 

society, from the highest to the lowliest, the picture of harsh reality almost everyone was trying to

avoid in an unprecedented phenomenon of mass denial.

Suddenly, it became obvious that a “democratic” culture that systematically encourages blatantly

anti-democratic, anti-social, vulgar, and gratuitously injurious behaviors has little, if any, future

left.

Suddenly, it became obvious that a culture of unbridled sectionalism, fueled by persistent political

sloganeering and masqueraded behind the various guises of “democratic process,” has nothing to

offer beyond the vicious blackmailing of the many by the few and apocalyptic destruction once

the broader system begins to reveal its true inabilities and malfunctions which lie hidden

underneath its thick layer of make-up.

Suddenly, it became obvious that demanding and learning to expect  a society where the

government offers free schools, free health care, free mass transportation, free vacations, free

entertainment, free housing, free universities, free student accommodation, free school books,

and guaranteed for-life government employment with good salaries, fat pensions, and retirement 

bonuses leads to one dark, endless tunnel.

And, suddenly, it became obvious that when this level of pathological unreality is disturbed, the

response could be fierce and fatal.

The reactions of the Greek political class to the ongoing crisis is living proof that Greece is

locked in an impasse. A first reading of government and opposition statements, alongside the

mind-boggling cacophony from the media and other “social partners,” proves there are no

practical proposals that could begin to mend the situation. On the other hand, it is also obvious,

that none of the “actors” in this apocalyptic absurdity can actually see the message of the

contradiction between a Greek society “traditionally tolerant” of protest and habitual disruption

of everyday life -- as the foreign press has repeatedly highlighted in recent days -- and the

justified agony of so many, who have seen their livelihoods and properties go up in smoke in the

hands of vandals their government won't oppose or pursue, and who realize, somewhat belatedly,

that something, anything, must be done to stop this catastrophic slide.

Unfortunately for all these victims, and all the unknown others who look with fear and loathing

upon the riots, the prospects, immediate and more distant, are not encouraging.

3